Lettre à M. Dacier

Cover of the first edition of Lettre à M. Dacier by Jean-François Champollion.
The table of Coptic, demotic and hieroglyphic phonetic characters that appears as an illustration in the Lettre à M. Dacier

Lettre à M. Dacier (full title: Lettre à M. Dacier relative à l'alphabet des hiéroglyphes phonétiques: "Letter to M. Dacier concerning the alphabet of the phonetic hieroglyphs") is a scientific communication in the form of a letter sent in 1822 by egyptologist Jean-François Champollion to Bon-Joseph Dacier, secretary of the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. it is the founding text upon which Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics were first systematically deciphered by Champollion, largely on the basis of the multilingual Rosetta Stone.

History

While visiting his brother Jacques-Joseph on September 14, 1822, Champollion made a crucial breakthrough in understanding the phonetic nature of hieroglyphics, and proclaimed "Je tiens l'affaire!" ("I've got it!") and then fainted dead away.[1]

On 27 September 1822, he exhibited at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres a draft containing eight pages of text to a packed room. The final version was published in late October 1822 by Firmin-Didot in a booklet of 44 pages with 4 illustrated plates.[2]

Display at the Louvre

On the 150th anniversary of the Lettre in October 1972, the Rosetta Stone was displayed next to it at the Louvre in Paris.[3]

French text of the Letter

"It is a complex system, writing figurative, symbolic, and phonetic all at once, in the same text, the same phrase, I would almost say in the same word."[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Adkins, Lesley and Roy, The Keys to Egypt: The Obsession to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs. p.181 Harper Collins. 2000. ISBN 0-06-019439-1
  2. ↑ Adkins, Lesley and Roy, The Keys to Egypt: The Obsession to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs. p.190 Harper Collins. 2000. ISBN 0-06-019439-1
  3. ↑ Parkinson, Richard B. (2005). The Rosetta Stone. British Museum objects in focus. p. 47 British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-7141-5021-5.
  4. ↑ Jean-François Champollion, Letter to M. Dacier, September 27, 1822

File:Bryant translation Champollion letter.pdf

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